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Agricultural tours were focus of senator's Colorado visit on Monday

By Jenni Grubbs

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
08/07/2017 07:07:08 PM MDT

U.S. Sen Cory Gardner speaks at a 2015 rally near Berthoud for the Northern Integrated Supply Project. Gardner reiterated his support for the proposed massive northeast Colorado water storage project during an interview Monday with the Fort Morgan Times. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times file photo)

Just mentioning North Korea to U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner gets him fired up.

"North Korea is the most urgent national security threat our country faces," he told the Fort Morgan Times Monday in an interview that addressed many topics, including his take on North Korea. "That's not just me saying that."

And Gardner - who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy - thinks the United States needs to do more about that threat.

He pointed to the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act that was passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in 2016 as one vehicle for doing this, but Gardner, his voice full of passion, also said he was "a leading critic" of how the previous administration handled North Korea.

And he also did not shy away from also criticizing President Donald Trump on this front.

"I've been pleased with some" of the actions taken regarding North Korea, Gardner said, "but they can do more."

That criticism also extended to his brethren in Congress and to leaders in other countries, though, with the senator seeking more stringent sanctions, especially ones related to finances.

Specifically, he thinks the United States should deny North Korea access to its financial system and all "dollar-denominated transactions." Doing that would "cut off the ability to bank with North Korea," Gardner said.

He also thinks the United States could "do a better job of partnering with other nations" to cut off shipping avenues to North Korea.

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Additionally, Gardner said he would like to see the United States "make sure we are pressuring China to do more." The senator said that country has "tremendous leverage" over North Korea due to being its neighbor but is "not doing enough."

Gardner said he is not worried about the United States' debt held by China and repercussions with that for pressuring China on North Korea because of how "intrinsically linked" the U.S. and Chinese economies are.

And China is not the only country Gardner wants to see put pressure on North Korea. He also wants United Nations member countries and others to do what they can to discourage the "slave labor system" that results from North Korea sending workers to places like restaurants in other countries, with the workers' wages going back to North Korea. Those funds then get used on building up North Korea's nuclear program, Gardner explained.

"We've got to put pressure on other countries to stop this," he said.

Agriculture

Gardner also spoke about many issues and things closer to home, which for him means Yuma County when not in Washington, D.C..

Gardner was back in Colorado early this week for several agriculture-related tours and fact-finding visits, including ones Monday morning at an organic dairy and agricultural research station in Weld County and a planned hemp farm visit later that day.

He said agriculture was a top priority for him in the Senate.

"Every year, I travel across Colorado to visit Colorado ag (entities)," Gardner said, with his goal being to "find out what's changing" and "how we can develop public policies" that benefit agriculture.

And it makes sense that he places such a big focus on agriculture, both in terms of his roots as part of a farm-implement dealership-owning family and his Colorado constituency.

"Oil and gas, agriculture, tourism and aerospace - those are the four economic drivers of our state," Gardner said. "Ag continues to be one of the building blocks."

While at the dairy in Weld County, Gardner said he heard that Colorado was "one of the best places to have an organic dairy" but there were stopping blocks for getting such dairies going.

"Some of the dairy policies we've had set up for a long time don't work for organic dairies," Gardner said he heard.

At the ag research station, the senator learned more about drones and how using them can benefit producers in terms of being able to track moisture and nutrients in fields of crops.

"Farmers can map a field in minutes versus seven hours," he said of the specialized drones used for this, and sounding awed by "the efficiencies" amount of data producers could get from the drones and their tractors. "You can build a prescription for your farm."

But Gardner also pointed to the regulatory aspects of such drones and current related uncertainties and concerts.

"There's a lot of things we have to figure out from a regulatory standpoint," he said, such as how to make sure that drones and larger crop-dusting aircraft can both operate safely in the airspace above farms. Rules for "how to make those two uses compatible" would need to be determined.

Gardner also supports hemp farming as an agricultural crop.

Health care

One of the biggest issues lately in the Senate has been health care, with Republicans' attempts thus far failing to repeal, replace or change the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare.

"We continue to see status quo," Gardner said about. "No bill or law passed."

But he expects Colorado consumers to see "on average" 27 percent annual increases in health insurance premiums, or even greater in coming years.

"That's just got to change," he said.

While he pointed to a need to "stabilize the individual market" and offer people "more choice" in health care plans and options, Gardner did not have a specific plan for doing so.

With all the stalemates the health-care battles in Congress thus far have created, the Times asked Gardner if he thought health-care reform or changes would be possible in the future.

"It has to be possible," he said. "If we don't, it will price people out."

Gardner did point to the fines levied on people without ACA-qualifying health care coverage as being something he wants to see change.

"There are 145,000 in Colorado paying a fine because they can't afford insurance," he said. "We've got to do this better."

Gardner said he expected there to be hearings in the Senate in September about potential options addressing health-care costs, and he "hopes" to see something happen that would help people.

Constituent outreach

One of the things Gardner has drawn criticism for is his lack of holding public town hall meetings for his constituents to attend and ask him questions in person.

He did participate in one Friday in Durango with fellow Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Gov. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CD3).

While Gardner said that he has held "over 100" town hall meetings during his time in Congress, the senator has not held an open-forum meeting with his eastern Colorado constituents in quite some time.

His plans for the rest of August do include more time in Colorado, further visits with constituents and businesses and telephone town hall sessions, but not specifically open-forum town hall meetings.

"I will continue to use an all-of-the-above approach" for gathering constituent feedback, he told the Times.

Getting local

Gardner also addressed some issues that are specific to Fort Morgan and Morgan County.

He said he would look for ways to be involved in support through the Senate for improving access to "tele-medicine" and expansion of broadband infrastructure in rural areas.

Gardner also said he was working on finding ways to have less regulations on water for agricultural uses. He said he supported the recent repealing of the more stringent definition of "waters of the United States" that had led to much stronger rules being used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and had affected farmers.

He said he also would be a "champion for overseas markets" when it came to agricultural products, including those originating in Morgan County.

A major local initiative that Gardner supports is the proposed Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP), which would mean Northern Water building two reservoirs in northeast Colorado for holding water for a mixture of 15 municipal and agricultural participants. Fort Morgan and Morgan County Quality Water District are among those participants.

Gardner called himself a "strong supporter" of NISP and said he had met with Northern Water to find out "what can be done" to move that water storage project forward.

"It needs to go," he said of NISP.

Tax reform

One of the next issues the Senate is likely to take up is tax reform, and Gardner said he sees the potential for bipartisan efforts on this.

"Both sides, Democrats and Republicans, have talked about needing to make the tax code more competitive," the senator said.

Specifically, he pointed to looking at overseas tax rates for businesses and using that as a starting point for what to change in the tax code as one way to make businesses want to be based in the United States or to choose to bring profits back here for further investment. Gardner said the United States could include such incentives as a part of tax reform legislation.

He suggested that such tax revenue perhaps then could be directed toward investing in infrastructure projects in the United States, which could lead to jobs and even more reasons for companies to invest here.

LGBT issues

When asked about issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, Gardner did not have much to say.

But he did reiterate his stance on people identifying as LGBT and serving in the military.

"If you're capable and willing to serve in the military, you ought to be able to serve," he said.

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